I really like this framing of research-y ideas. Matches what I was thinking in a conversation with an angel investor on the difficulties of investing in frontier-tech startups.
It seems like the key for startup funding is finding profitable intermediate goals. Optimizable projects within the bigger, non-global-critical-path effort.
This is basically what SpaceX did to me. Building a colony on mars is a clear goal but has no global critical path. However “drastically lower cost of payload to orbit” does (albeit with some “fatness” in it for sure). And more obviously monitizable despite the capital/time requirements. Add to that the creativity of exploiting other monetizable businesses that are enabled in pursuit of the goal (Starlink) and it makes further financial sense.
Thinking about it like this reminds me of the means-ends heuristic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means–ends_analysis You may not know what to optimize for the final goal but there can be profitable intermediate ones that get you closer to the final goal.
Of course, there are some areas where there still won’t be any intermediate + profitable goals. These are the real research-y ideas.
Thinking out loud here...
Would want to keep any agenda specific enough to drive outcomes, but not too specific as to turn people off from petty disagreements. Balance it at some middle level of abstraction, and make it very straightforward/logical that the agenda leads to progress. What are the different areas an agenda could cover?
Specific technologies—as you mentioned, something like “progress is good. energy allows more progress. cheaper energy allows more energy. nuclear is cheaper energy. nuclear is good ⇒ promote nuclear”
Media—definitive stance on pro-progress media (books, videos, podcasts, memes, movies, etc.) and what makes something “pro-progress”
Regulation—hypotheses with lots of data on specific regulations that, if removed or revisited, would increase progress